It was the year 1996
I was in the first year of college
Undergoing an internship
At an ad agency
With other rookies like me
We talked about books, movies galore
I found I didn’t remember much
Even then, my memory
Was like mercury to touch
All those books
That I’d read
Seemed to have flown
Right out of my head
I talked way too much,
Let my guard down
Enough to create
A scandal in town
One girl told me
“The boss wants you to wear a short skirt”
I used to wear long salwars and didn’t flirt
I felt completely miserable
Coz at heart, I was still a prude
Not interested in getting friendly
With this creepy old married dude.
When I went back to college
I complained to my HOD
Who seemed to think
I was making a mountain
Out of a molehill,
And she smiled benignly at me.
One of the teachers
Came to my house
And tried to tell me
I should complain
Against my boss, the louse!
I wanted to have no part in it
Since by then,
I wanted to forget it all, bit by bit.
One girl from the agency
While I was still there
Had told me disturbing stories about herself
About four guys who 'loved' her
And one of them who wrote her number
On their college compound wall saying,
“Call her, she’s a whore”
I was so distressed to hear that
My thoughts started to swirl
I concluded by then
It’s quite sick to be born a girl
Cut to a few years down the line
I think it was 2002 or 2003
I’d been hired as a trainee
At a mid-level ad agency
I’d written a review of a book
‘Inscrutable Americans’
Which involved descriptions
Of somewhat lewd scenes
I wonder if the Creative Director
Thought to himself
Here’s a girl who’s ‘easy’
He looked so old, fat, and sleazy.
The first day I joined
He asked me out to lunch
I went uncomfortably
With four grown married men
Feeling miserable as they
Acted like it was their own private den
Another day, at the same agency
I was called into a room
And asked to watch ‘magnolia’
With another bunch of men
A movie with nude scenes
I felt uncomfortable as hell
But sat through it
As my boss sat behind me
Smirking at my misery
At twenty-five
I’d not learned
The important art
Of navigating a world
Filled with creepy old farts.
That led to more tears
A week down the line
When the agency
Organized a weekend getaway
At a beach resort
God knows what else they’d
Had cooked up in the plot.
I locked myself up in my room
And refused to get out.
Within two weeks
I resigned
They didn’t pay me a pie
I even returned a book
From their office library
It was ‘The Fountainhead’
Oh! The irony.
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